The Singapore Daily

“The direct help for individuals & households amount to less than 13% ($2.6 billion) of the total [budget]. 66% ($13.5 billion) is given directly to companies. Past reserves are accumulated savings and wealth of the nation and hence of its citizens. If the reserve vault is to be opened, the direct benefits should be skewed for more to go to [citizens] instead of to companies.”
Tan Kin Lian

“It is because there is no social safety net in place that the ruling party can capitalize on economic crises and the accompanying anxieties of the people to wring from them gratitude and indebtedness… Create a population that is put at your mercy and you can be merciful. You don’t even have to be responsible.”
Mollymeek

“It’s exhausting to write about Singapore not because it is confronting, but because it is so incomprehensible. What else can I say, with the legal noose tightening around our necks, but that we need words more than ever, to write against falsehood, to write for our own truths. Going through the numerous blogs that dot our local cyberscape, our catharses and confessions read like prison writings. The hopeful, the resigned, the escapist, the ignorant, the aware but imprisoned, all sitting alone in their dark cells scribbling into existence what’s going through their heads, to pass time and to let time pass them by. How different is that from us, sitting alone in the dark in our rooms, typing so as to escape, so as to forget, even if just so briefly?”
Cavalierio

“I recommend the Singapore government set up talks with the President of the Internet, to formally complain about the behaviour of its netizens.. and express very strong feelings of disappointment.. Netizens can help by taking courses on acceptable online behaviour so that we can cybertalk in a way that the gahmen finds responsible.”
mrbrown

This week’s roundup and recommended reads after the break.

Singapore Budget 2009
- Big Talk Singapore: Singapore Budget 2009
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Singapore Budget Discussion [Recommended]
- Tan Kin Lian’s Blog: Budget 2009 is not pro-people
- Sgpolitics.net: Singapore’s economy: Has the Government been caught with its pants down?
- Sgpolitics.net: Budget spending not transparent, SDP proposes alternative 5-point plan
- The Kway Teow Man: Jobs Credit Explained
- Sg Enquirer: One week after the Budget, even GLCs are retrenching
- Endoh’s Dungeon: One man’s dream - Today’s a reality
- Feed Me To The Fish: Job Credit Scheme is a Misnomer!
- groundnotes: Job Credit scheme: False dilemmas aplenty
- TOC: Workers’ Party MP questions effectiveness of Job Credit scheme
- Siew Kum Hong: Budget 2009: Speech on Budget Statement, 3 February 2009 [Vid][Thanks craven]
- Sgpolitics.net: Parliamentary Snapshots — 03 Feb 2009
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: The TRUTH about Jobs Credit!
- Everyday’s Life in a Snapshot: so we invested in other countries more than we invest in our own
- To Fix a Mocking Peasant: A Kind Government [Recommended]
- Singaporean Skeptic: That is why we need more opposition MPs in Parliament
- Hard Hitting in the Lion City: Disappointed with the Budget Debate
- Bernard Aw’s Blog: About Jobs Credit Scheme
- Hear Ye! Hear Ye!: Ganging up on Low Thia Khiang
- Bernard Aw’s Blog: Why SDP “alternative” budget will not work?
- Making History Relevant: SDP Version of S’pore Budget 2009
- Sgpolitics.net: A consolidation of my views on Budget 2009
- a blog day’s work: Can a news agency swap an online article at fancy?
- Feed Me To The Fish: Ms Denise Phua, will you shave your head?
- Singapore Alternatives: Will Subsidies to Companies help save jobs?
- ThinkingNectar: An Alternative Jobs Credit Implementation [Thanks Chin Yong]
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Govt Help - What it is really like..
- TOC: Sylvia Lim’s Budget speech - are we depleting our current reserves?
- Hear Ye! Hear Ye!: Sensible suggestion but was unfortunately shot down
- Military Life: Money Got Enough: Defence Budget Increases by 6% Despite Recession
- Sgpolitics: NSP Budget Response 2009 — Extensive But Not Comprehensive

Recession
- Blowin’ In The Wind: Silver lining in cloud over Singapore
- Blowin’ In The Wind: Million-dollar watchdogs needed
- Making History Relevant: Singapore: Consumption to boost growth?
- My sketchbook: The mother of all great ideas-jobs credit scheme
- Bernard Aw’s Blog: The need to do more about unemployment in Singapore
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Economic woes spilling into society and politics..
- Yawning Bread: Half-million is the new benchmark
- The Wayang Party Club: Koo Tsai Kee’s non-rebuttal to WSJA’s criticism
- This lush garden within: There is no poverty (line) in Singapore
- The Itch To Write: Singapore’s TV license is world’s lowest..
- HWZ: MDA said “TV licence fee among world’s lowest”!

We Don’t Need No Regulation: MP burnt
- Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Minister Liu : Community squandered” an opportunity to show a higher degree of self-regulation
- Celluloid Reality(s): Diversity and eating one’s proverbial cake
- The eOK .network: Is the crowd telling us a story?
- mrbrown.com: Singapore Govt says: Internet very unruly and unkind, not self-regulated enough
- ringisei: Coffee shop talk not an effective self-regulated regime
- Everyday’s Life in a Snapshot: You can do more: because you didn’t show sympathy for the burnt MP
- Sgpolitics: Lui Tuck Yew’s admonishment of netizens misses the forest, the trees, and even the overhead bridge
- Yawning Bread: Shield us good, mock us bad, says Lui
- Empty Vessels: We don’t need no regulation..
- a writer’s blog: Self-regulation fail?
- Hard Hitting in the Lion City: Lui Tuck Yew Obviously Do Not Read My Blog
- Hear Ye! Hear Ye!: Is the gahmen going to regulate cyberspace now?
- Dotseng: Mr Brown and The Man Who Got Burnt?
- The Lycan Times: Cyberspace Self Regulation?
- Everyday’s Life in a Snapshot: Slander: your definition or mine?
- The Wayang Party Club: Lui Tuck Yew should recall what his PAP colleague Wee Siew Kim said in 2006
- TPJCians: Citizen Journalism In Singapore [Thanks azhar]
- Sam’s thoughts: Lui Tuck Yew and the Internet
- My sketchbook: Our cyberspace sheriff
- EDMW: Just now I saw on evening newspapers headlines that police is going to investigate..

Strangers In A Strange Land
- TOC: The wages of deceit
- Singaporean Skeptic: More Permanent Residents in Singapore
- Mathia Lee: Put Singaporeans first
- Gerald Giam: Is Straits Times protecting Govt from criticism?

Singaporeans A Dying Breed
- ringisei: Demography ‘not my forte,’ says MP
- Mollymeek: Singaporeans as Production Units, Not Humans

Freedom, Choice and a place for my Voice
- groundnotes: How to inflict selective amnesia
- Gerald Giam: Amendments to the Films Act
- Jacob’s Weblog: From Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hall in Race Course Lane to British High Commission in Tanglin Road

High Notes and Mini Bombs
- Mr Wang Says So: The Saga of the Structured Notes - What Next for the Suffering Investors? (Part 1) (Part 2)
- Making History Relevant: Economics of Structured Notes

The Association of Bloggers
- The Lycan Times: Association of Bloggers Singapore (II)
- Endoh’s Dungeon: Independence of a Blogger is a myth
- Digital Terrorist: Rupture in the One-Woman Association
- Cowboy Caleb: TNP: 30 Bloggers Joining SG Bloggers Assoc
- Dee Kay Dot As Gee: Some clarification to the newspaper articles
- The Sun Shines on Singapore: So Much for the Bloggers’ Association

One-Party to Rule Us All
- Singabloodypore: Thai PM Rejects Singapore’s One Party Rule

PAP Ministars, Get Rich or Die Tryin
- Everyday’s Life in a Snapshot: Extraordinary times, extraordinary budget, extraordinary bonuses

Fixin’ the Opposition
- Sgpolitics.net: Misconceptions about the Singapore Democrats

SG Press rank 141 and falling
- Blowin’ In The Wind: Straits Times reports old tourism news

Re Education
- Information Read By Me: More help for needy students, how about Borderline? [Thanks Jojo]

Healthcare
- My Little Corner: Means Testing for 2009

Censorship and Pink Issues
- Sam’s Thoughts: Straight-jacket problem

Faith, Religion, to each his own
- Random Thoughts Of A Free Thinker: The Curious Case of Tecman & Tracts

Poly Student Transport Fare Petition
- TOC: Student group proposes new formula for student’s transportation fares

Daily Discourse
- still me: small news
- choongyong.com: Waste of Money, Waste of Electricity
- Making History Relevant: S’pore is Evil
- groundnotes: Spread the foreign talent around
- Chemical Generation Singapore: Ignorantia legis neminem excusat?
- Everyday’s Life in a Snapshot- for lesser mortals only: Stupidity rules when you enforce stupid rules
- Dotseng: Does Aunty ECL Blend? -The Day We Became Animals And Ate Our Own!
- TOC: STOMP the biggest loser in TPJC controversy
- Wayang Party Club: Why there is no ‘Malaysiakini’ in Singapore
- Nomadism: “New POSB branch concept”..is it really that new?
- Cavalierio: Just ask (from See Nao)
- Hear Ye! Hear Ye!: Need help? Just ask. But ask who?
- Feed Me To The Fish: Why Do The Crazies Love To Hurt PAP MPs?
- Cavalierio: Visceral reasonings
- The Temple of Thoughts: Why Singapore can’t succeed in Arts just yet
- Singaporean Skeptic: Another former IMH patient charged in court
- Making History Relevant: The Failure of SDP
- Seelan Palay’s Blog: Rare Singapore protest over Sri Lanka war
- Petition for Fairer Transport Fares: Latest - We did it!

Life, the universe and everything
- Cavalierio: Words lighting fires [Recommended]
- Singapore Peak Oil: My Thoughts on William Choong’s Article on Nuclear Energy in Singapore
- Insane Polygons: Surviving The Drought
- Yummy BBQ Chicken Wings: Something more yummy than bbq chicken wings
- Liberative: Awesome!
- Cogito Ergo Sum: Is this Singnet manipulating my traffic? What about your ISP?
- Aussie Pete: Culture Matters - My Interview On Chinese TV [Go Peter! Don't forget us when you become rich and famous :-)]
- ed’sperience’s blog: Shoe hurled as Chinese PM speaks
- NO BUNS NO LIFE: Rubik’s 360 is HERE. Bigger and Badder than Rubik’s Cube. CAN YOU SOLVE IT?
- quachee’s blog: Chinese New Year Malacca
- Balderdash: UNESCO World Heritage Site for Singapore!
- Boleh! Boleh!: $10 Prosperity Pack, $28 Abundance Pack, $228 Lucky Pack
- vinyarb: If you see Christian Bale… F*CKING RUN!
- A L V I N O L O G Y: dumbest.info: website for boliao people
- The fire in my life: No money, no honey.. [Thanks Joel]
- Small steps for Social PR: To kill a mocking blog – a Twitter whodunit [Thanks Aaron]
- Singapore Fountain Pen: The 11 Rules To Change Our World

Its Football, not Soccer
- Hard Hitting in the Lion City: EPL this month

Books and Papercuts
- Song of a Reformed Headhunter: Leon Edel’s “Henry James: The Middle Years 1882-1895″